[Transcriber's note: This work is derived from
https://archive.org/details/shakspearehistim00guizrich/page/n11/mode/2up.
Pages 132 and 133 are missing from this copy.
The replacement pages are from
https://archive.org/stream/cu31924013149129]
{i}
Shakspeare And His Times,
By M. Guizot.
New York:
Harper & Brothers, Publishers
329 & 331 Pearl Street,
Franklin Square.
{ii}
{iii}
Preface.
The Essay on the Life and Works of Shakspeare, which I reprint in
the present volume, appeared for the first time as an
Introduction to the French edition of Shakspeare's complete
works, which was published at Paris in 1821. This edition was
based upon the translation of Shakspeare's plays which was
commenced in 1776 by Le Tourneur, and which, at that period, gave
rise to such animated disputes in the literary world, and
especially in the Correspondence of Voltaire and of La Harpe. In
1821 I undertook to edit this translation of Shakspeare's
principal works, and I revised six tragedies, ten historical
dramas, and three comedies. M. De Barante kindly assisted me by
translating "Hamlet;" and M. Amédée Pichot, who is so thoroughly
acquainted with England and English literature, undertook to
revise all the remaining plays.
Since that period other translations of Shakspeare, both partial
and complete, in prose and in verse, have been published.
Whatever their merit may be, they have not been successful; and
no one will ever succeed, except imperfectly, in transfusing into
our language, with their true character and full effect, the
works of this prodigious genius. This arises not only from the
fact that every translation must necessarily be imperfect and
insufficient, but also on account of the particular turn of
Shakspeare's mind and style, as well as that of his national
tongue.
{iv}
Shakspeare is excellent in substance, but deficient in form; he
discerns, and brings admirably into view, the instincts,
passions, ideas--indeed, all the inner life of man; he is the
most profound and most dramatic of moralists; but he makes his
personages speak a language which is often fastidious, strange,
excessive, and destitute of moderation and naturalness. And the
English language is singularly propitious to the defects, as well
as to the beauties, of Shakspeare; it is rich, energetic,
passionate, abundant, striking; it readily admits the lofty
flights, and even the wild excesses, of the poetic imagination;
but it does not possess that elegant sobriety, that severe and
delicate precision, that moderation in expression and harmony in
imagery, which constitute the peculiar merit of the French
language; so that, when Shakspeare passes from England into
France, if he is translated with scrupulous fidelity, his defects
become more apparent, and more offensive, beneath his new dress,
than they were in his native form; and if, on the other hand, it
is attempted to adapt his language, even in the slightest degree,
to the genius of our tongue, he is inevitably robbed of a great
part of his wealth, force, and originality. A literal translation
and a free rendering do wrong to Shakspeare in a different
manner, but in an equal degree. When he is translated, or when he
is read in a translation, it must never be forgotten that he
labors under one or other of these disadvantages.
In continuation of the Essay on the Life and Works of Shakspeare,
I have published, in this volume, a series of Notices of his
principal dramas, and an Essay on Othello and Dramatic Art in
France in 1830, which the Duke De Broglie inserted, at that
period, in the "Revue Francaise," and which he has kindly allowed
me to include in this volume.
{v}
Those Essays constitute, in some sort, proofs in support of the
ideas which, in 1821, I endeavored to develop regarding the
nature of dramatic art in general, and the particular and
diversified forms which it has assumed among those nations and in
those ages in which it has shone with greatest brilliancy: an art
so powerful and attractive, that, in all times and at all places,
in the period of its infancy as well as in that of its
maturity--of its glory as well as of its decline--it has ever
remained invincibly popular, and has never ceased to charm all
men either by its master-pieces or by its sparkling
_bluettes_.
Guizot.
Paris, _June_ 10, 1852.
{6}
{7}
Contents.
Shakspeare And His Times -- 9
Shakspeare's Tragedies
Romeo and Juliet -- 161
Hamlet -- 174
King Lear -- 185
Macbeth -- 192
Julius Cæsar -- 208
Othello -- 216
Shakspeare In France -- 228
Shakspeare's Historical Dramas 295
King John -- 297
King Richard II. -- 304
King Henry IV. -- 312
King Henry V. -- 320
King Henry VI. -- 322
King Richard III. -- 334
King Henry VIII. -- 340
Shakspeare's Comedies:
The Merchant of Venice -- 343
The Merry Wives of Windsor -- 348
The Tempest -- 354
{8}
{9}
Shakspeare And His Times
Voltaire was the first person in France who spoke of Shakspeare's
genius; and although he spoke of him merely as a barbarian
genius, the French public were of opinion that Voltaire had said
too much in his favor. Indeed, they thought it nothing less than
profanation to apply the words genius and glory to dramas which
they considered as crude as they were coarse.
At the present day, all controversy regarding Shakspeare's genius
and glory has come to an end. No one ventures any longer to
dispute them; but a greater question has arisen, namely, whether
Shakspeare's dramatic system is not far superior to that of
Voltaire.
This question I do not presume to decide. I merely say that it is
now open for discussion. We have been led to it by the onward
progress of ideas. I shall endeavor to point out the causes which
have brought it about; but at present I insist merely upon the
fact itself, and deduce from it one simple consequence, that
literary criticism has changed its ground, and can no longer
remain restricted to the limits within which it was formerly
confined.
Literature does not escape from the revolutions of the human
mind; it is compelled to follow it in its course--to transport
itself beneath the horizon under which it is conveyed; to gain
elevation and extension with the ideas which occupy its notice,
and to consider the questions which it discusses under the new
aspects and novel circumstances in which they are placed by the
new state of thought and of society.
{10}
My readers will not, therefore, be surprised that, in order
properly to appreciate Shakspeare, I find it necessary to make
some preliminary researches into the nature of dramatic poetry
and the civilization of modern peoples, especially of England. If
we did not begin with these general considerations, it would be
impossible to keep pace with the confused, perhaps, but active
and urgent ideas, which such a subject originates in all minds.
A theatrical performance is a popular festival; that it should be
so is required by the very nature of dramatic poetry. Its power
rests upon the effects of sympathy--of that mysterious force
which causes laughter to beget laughter; which bids tears to flow
at the sight of tears, and which, in spite of the diversity of
dispositions, conditions, and characters, produces the same
impression on all upon whom it simultaneously acts. For the
proper development of these effects, a crowd must be assembled;
those ideas and feelings which would pass languidly from one man
to another, traverse the serried ranks of a multitude with the
rapidity of lightning; and it is only when large masses of men
are collected together that we observe the action of that moral
electricity which the dramatic poet calls into such powerful
operation.
Dramatic poetry, therefore, could originate only among the
people. At its birth it was destined to promote their pleasures;
in their festivities it once performed an active part; and with
the first songs of Thespis the chorus of the spectators
invariably united.
{11}
But the people are not slow to perceive that the pleasures with
which they can supply themselves are neither the best, nor the
only pleasures which they are capable of enjoying. To those
classes which spend their days in toil, complete repose seems to
be the first and almost the sole condition of pleasure. A
momentary suspension of the efforts or privations of daily life,
an interval of movement and liberty, a relative abundance; this
is all that the people seek to derive from those festivities
which they are able to provide for themselves--these are all the
enjoyments which it is in their power to procure. And yet these
men are born to experience nobler and keener delights; they are
possessed of faculties which the monotony of their existence has
allowed to lie dormant in inactivity. If these faculties be
awakened by a powerful voice; if an animated narrative, or a
stirring scene stimulate these drowsy imaginations, these torpid
sensibilities, they will gain an activity which they could never
have imparted to themselves, but which they will rejoice to
receive; and then will arise, without the co-operation of the
multitude, but in its presence and for its amusement, new games
and new pleasures which will speedily become necessities.
To such festivities as these the dramatic poet invites the
assembled people. He undertakes to divert them, but the amusement
which he supplies is one of which they would have been ignorant
without his assistance. Æschylus relates to his fellow-citizens
the victories of Salamis, the anxieties of Atossa, and the grief
of Xerxes. He charms the people of Athens, but it is by raising
them to a level with emotions and ideas which Æschylus alone
could exalt to so high a point; and he communicates to the
multitude impressions which they are capable of feeling, but
which Æschylus alone is able to awaken.
{12}
Such is the nature of dramatic poetry; for the people it calls
its creations into being, to the people it addresses itself; but
it is in order to ennoble their character, to extend and vivify
their moral existence, to reveal to them faculties which they
unconsciously possess, and to procure for them enjoyments which
they eagerly seize, but which they would not even seek after, if
a sublime art did not reveal to them their existence by making
them minister to their gratification.
And this work the dramatic poet must necessarily pursue; he must
elevate and civilize, as it were, the crowd that he summons to
hear his performance. How can he act upon the assembled
multitude, except by an appeal to the most general and elevated
characteristics of their nature? It is only by going out of the
narrow circle of common life and individual interests that the
imagination becomes exalted and the heart enlarged, that
pleasures become disinterested and the affections generous, and
that men can sympathize in those common emotions the expression
of which causes the theatre to resound with transports of
delight. Religion has, therefore, universally been the source and
furnished the primitive materials of dramatic art; at its origin,
it celebrated, among the Greeks, the adventures of Bacchus, and,
in Northern Europe, the mysteries of Christ. This arises from the
fact that, of all human affections, piety most powerfully unites
men in common feelings, because it most thoroughly detaches them
from themselves; it is also less dependent for its development
upon the progress of civilization, as it is powerful and pure
even in the most backward state of society. From its very
beginning, dramatic poetry has invoked the aid of piety, because,
of all the sentiments to which it could address itself, piety was
the noblest and the most universal.
{13}
Originating thus among the people and for the people, but
destined to elevate them by affording them delight, the dramatic
art speedily became, in every age and country, and by reason of
this very characteristic of its nature, the favorite pleasure of
the superior classes.
This was its natural tendency; and in this, also, it has
encountered its most dangerous quicksands. More than once,
allowing itself to be led astray by its high fortune, dramatic
art has lost or compromised its energy and liberty. When the
superior classes can fully give themselves up to their position,
they fall into the error or misfortune of isolating themselves
from their fellows, and ceasing, as it were, to share in the
general nature of man, and the public interests of society. Those
universal feelings, natural ideas, and simple relationships which
constitute the basis of humanity and of life, become changed and
enervated in a social condition which consists entirely of
exceptions and privileges. In such a state of society,
conventionalisms take the place of realities, and morals become
factitious and feeble. Human destiny ceases to be known under its
most salient and general aspects. It has a thousand phases, it
leads to a host of impressions and relations of which the higher
classes are utterly ignorant, unless they are compelled to enter
frequently into the public atmosphere. Dramatic art, when devoted
to their pleasure, finds its domain greatly diminished and
impoverished; it is invaded by a sort of monotony; events,
passions, characters, all those natural treasures which it lays
under contribution, no longer supply it with the same originality
and wealth. Its independence is imperiled as well as its variety
and energy. The habits of elegant society, as well as those of
the multitude, are characterized by their littlenesses, and it is
much more capable of imposing these littlenesses as laws.
{14}
It is stimulated by tastes rather than by necessities; it rarely
introduces into its pleasures that serious and ingenuous
disposition which abandons itself with transport to the
impressions which it receives; and it very frequently treats
genius as a servant who is bound to please it, and not as a power
that is capable of governing it by the enjoyments which it can
supply. If the dramatic poet does not possess, in the suffrages
of a larger and more simple public, the means of defending
himself against the haughty taste of a select coterie--if he can
not arm himself with public approbation, and rely for support
upon the universal feelings which he has been able to arouse in
all hearts--his liberty is lost; the caprices which he has
attempted to satisfy will weigh upon him like a chain, from which
he will be unable to free himself; talent, which is entitled to
command all, will find itself subject to the minority, and he who
ought to guide the taste of the people, will become the slave of
fashion.
Such, then, is the nature of dramatic poetry that, in order to
produce its most magical effects, and to preserve, during its
growth, its liberty as well as its wealth, it must not separate
from the people, to whom its earliest efforts were addressed. It
languishes, if it is transplanted from the soil in which it first
took root. Popular at its origin, it must continue to be
national, and it must not cease to comprehend beneath its sway,
and to charm with its productions, all classes that are capable
of experiencing the emotions from which it derives its power.
{15}
All ages of society, and all states of civilization are not
equally favorable to calling the people to the aid of dramatic
poetry, and insuring its prosperity under their influence. It was
the happy lot of Greece that the whole nation grew and developed
itself together with literature and the arts, keeping always on a
level with their progress, and acting as a competent judge of
their glory. That same people of Athens, who had surrounded the
chariot of Thespis, thronged to hear the master-pieces of
Sophocles and Euripides; and the most splendid triumphs of genius
were always, in that city, popular festivals. So brilliant a
moral equality has not presided over the destiny of modern
nations; their civilization, displaying itself upon a far more
extended scale, has undergone many more vicissitudes, and
presented much less unity. During more than ten centuries,
nothing was easy, general, or simple in our Europe. Religion,
liberty, public order, literature--nothing has been developed
among us without long-continued effort, in the midst of
incessantly-renewed struggles, and under the most diversified
influences. Amid this mighty and agitated chaos, dramatic poetry
did not possess the privilege of an easy and rapid career. It was
not its fate to find, almost at its birth, a public at once
homogeneous and various, the constituent members of which, both
great and small, rich and poor, in fine, all classes of citizens,
should be equally eager for, and worthy of its most brilliant
solemnities. Neither epochs of great social disorder nor periods
of severe necessity are times in which the masses can devote
themselves with enthusiasm to the pleasures of the stage.
Literature prospers only when it is so intimately united with the
tastes, habits, and entire existence of a people as to be
regarded at once as an occupation and a festivity, an amusement
and a necessity. Dramatic poetry, more than any other branch of
literature, depends upon this deep-seated and general union of
the arts with society.
{16}
It is not satisfied with the tranquil pleasures of enlightened
approbation, but it requires the quick impulses of passion; it
does not seek men in leisure and retirement that it may furnish
agreeable occupation for their hours of repose, but it requires
men to hasten and throng around it. A certain degree of mental
development and simplicity, a certain community of ideas and
habits between the different classes of society, greater ardor
than fixity of imagination, greater movement of soul than of
existence, a strongly-excited moral activity destitute of any
imperious and determined object, liberty of thought and repose of
life--these are the circumstances of which dramatic poetry has
need, in order to shine with its full splendor. These
circumstances never combined so completely or so harmoniously
among modern peoples as among the Greeks. But wherever their
leading characteristics have been found to exist, the drama has
become elevated; and neither have men of genius been failing to
the public, nor has the public proved wanting to men of genius.
The reign of Elizabeth, in England, was one of those decisive
epochs, so laboriously attained by modern peoples which terminate
the empire of force and inaugurate the reign of ideas. Original
and fruitful epochs are these, when the nations flock to mental
enjoyments as to a new kind of gratification, and when thought
prepares, in the pleasures of youth, for the discharge of those
functions which it will be called upon to exercise at a riper
age.
Scarcely recovered from the storms with which it had been ravaged
by the alternate successes and reverses of the Red and White
Roses, before it was again distracted and exhausted by the
capricious tyranny of Henry VIII. and the malevolent despotism of
Mary, England demanded of Elizabeth, at her accession, nothing
but order and peace; and this was precisely what Elizabeth was
most disposed to bestow.
{17}
Naturally prudent and reserved, though haughty and strong-willed,
she had been taught by the stern necessities of her youth never
to compromise herself. When upon the throne, she maintained her
independence by asking little of her people, and staked her
policy upon running no risks. Military glory could not seduce a
distrustful woman. The sovereignty of the Netherlands,
notwithstanding the efforts of the Dutch to induce her to accept
it, did not tempt her wary ambition. She resignedly determined to
make no attempt to recover Calais, or to retain Havre; and all
her desires of greatness, as well as all the cares of her
government, were concentrated upon the direct interests of the
country which she had to restore to repose and prosperity.
Surprised at so novel a state of things, the people reveled in it
with the intoxication of returning health. Civilization, which
had been destroyed or, suspended by their dissensions, revived or
progressed on every side. Industry brought wealth in its train,
and notwithstanding the shackles imposed by the oppressive
proceedings of the government, all the historians and all the
documents of this period bear testimony to the rapid progress of
popular luxury. The chronicler Harrison informs us that he had
heard many old men express their surprise at "the multitude of
chimneys lately erected, whereas in their young days there were
not above two or three, if so many, in most uplandish towns of
the realm (the religious houses and manor-places of their lords
always excepted). 'Our fathers,' they said, 'lay full oft upon
straw pallets, on rough mats covered only with a sheet, and a
good round log under their heads instead of a bolster or pillow;
and if the good man of the house had, within seven years after
his marriage, purchased a mattress or stock-bed, and thereto a
sack of chaff to rest his head upon, he thought himself to be as
well lodged as the lord of the town.'" [Footnote 1]
[Footnote 1: Harrison's Description of England, prefixed to
Holinshed's Chronicles, vol. i., p. 188.]
{18}
But Elizabeth ascended the throne, and Shakspeare tells us that
the busiest employment of the elves and fairies was to pinch
"black and blue" those servants who neglected to cleanse the
hearth-stone with due regularity. And Harrison informs us that
the farmers' houses in his time were well supplied "with three or
four feather-beds, as many coverlids and carpets of tapestry,
besides a fair garnish of pewter on the cupboard, with a silver
salt-cellar, a bowl for wine, and a dozen of spoons to furnish up
the suit." [Footnote 2]
[Footnote 2: Ibid. p. 189.]
More than one generation will pass away before a people will have
exhausted the novel enjoyments of such unusual good fortune. The
reigns of both Elizabeth and her successor were scarcely
sufficient to wear out that taste for comfort and repose which
had been fostered by long-continued agitations; and that
religious ardor, the explosion of which subsequently revealed the
existence of new forces which had lain hid in the bosom of
society during the tranquillity of these two reigns, was then
spreading itself silently among the masses, without as yet giving
birth to any general and decisive movement.
The Reformation, though treated with hostility by the great
sovereigns of the Continent, had received from Henry VIII. enough
encouragement and support to lessen its ambition and retard its
progress for a time. The yoke of Rome had been cast off, and
monastic life abolished. By thus granting satisfaction to the
primary desires of the age, and turning the first blows of the
Reformation to the advantage of material interests, Henry VIII.
deterred many minds from inquiring more thoroughly into the
purely theological dogmas of Catholicism, which no longer shocked
them by the exhibition of its most obnoxious abuses.
{19}
Faith, it is true, was in a tottering state, and could no longer
cling firmly to disputed doctrines. These doctrines, therefore,
were fated one day to fall; but the day of their rejection was
delayed. At a time when the Catholic defender of the real
presence was burned at the stake for maintaining the supremacy of
the Pope, and the Reformer who denied the papal supremacy
suffered the same punishment for refusing to admit the real
presence, many minds necessarily remained in suspense. Neither of
the two conflicting opinions afforded to cowardice, which is so
plentifully manifested in difficult times, the refuge of a
victorious party. The dogma of political obedience was the only
one which docile consciences could adopt with any zeal; and among
the sincere adherents of either party, the hopes of triumph which
so singular a position allowed each to entertain still kept in
activity those timidly courageous individuals whom tyranny is
obliged to pursue into their last retrenchments, in order to
force them to offer any resistance.
The vicissitudes experienced by the religious establishment of
England, during the reigns of Edward VI. and Mary, tended to
maintain this disposition. Anxiety for martyrdom had not time, in
either party, to nourish and diffuse itself; and though the party
of the Reformation--which was already more influential over the
public mind, more persevering in its exertions, and more
remarkable for the number and courage of its martyrs--was
proceeding evidently toward a final victory, yet the success
which it had obtained at the accession of Elizabeth had supplied
it rather with leisure to prepare for new conflicts than with
power to engage in them at once, and to render them decisive.
{20}
Though connected, by her position, with the doctrines of the
Reformers, Elizabeth had, in common with the Catholic clergy, a
strong taste for pomp and authority. Her first regulations in
regard to religious matters were, consequently, of such a
character that most of the Catholics felt no repugnance to attend
the divine worship with which the Reformers were satisfied; and
the establishment of the Anglican Church, which was intrusted to
the hands of the existing clergy, met with very little
resistance, and at the same time very little encouragement, from
the general body of ecclesiastics. Religion continued to be
regarded, by a great many persons, as a merely political matter.
The disputes of England with the Court of Rome and with Spain, a
few internal conspiracies and the severities with which they were
repressed, successively created new causes for animosity between
the two parties. Religious interest, however, had so little
influence over public feeling, that in 1569, Elizabeth, the
daughter of the Reformation, but far more precious to her people
as the pledge of public repose and prosperity, found most of her
Catholic subjects zealous to assist her to crush the Catholic
rebellion of a part of the north of England.
For still stronger reasons, they willingly agreed to that joyous
forgetfulness of all great subjects of dispute which Elizabeth
encouraged them to entertain. It is true that, in the depths of
the masses of the people, the Reformation, which had been
flattered, but not satisfied, murmured indistinctly; and even
that voice which was destined soon to shake all England to its
centre was heard gradually rising to utterance.
{21}
But amid that movement of youthful vigor, which had, as it were,
carried away the whole nation, the stern severity of the
Reformers was still regarded as importunate, and those who had
bestowed on it a passing glance quickly turned their eyes in some
more agreeable direction; so that the accents of Puritanism,
united with those of liberty, were repressed without effort by a
power under whose protection the people had too recently been
sheltered to entertain any great fear of its encroachments.
No periods are perhaps more favorable to the fertility and
originality of mental productions than those times at which a
nation already free, but still ignorant of its own position,
ingenuously enjoys what it possesses without perceiving in what
it is deficient: times full of ardor, but very easy to please,
before rights have been narrowly defined, powers discussed, or
restrictions agreed upon. The government and the public,
proceeding in their course undisturbed by fears or scruples,
exist together without any distrustful observance of each other,
and even come into communication but rarely. If, on the one side,
power is unlimited, on the other liberty will be great; for both
parties will be ignorant of those general forms, those
innumerable and minute duties to which actions and minds are more
or less subjected by a scientifically constructed despotism, and
even by a well-regulated liberty. Thus it was that the age of
Richelieu and Louis XIV. consciously possessed that amount of
liberty which has furnished us with a literature and a drama. At
that period of our history, when even the name of public
liberties seemed to have been forgotten, and when a feeling of
the dignity of man served as the basis neither of the
institutions of the country nor of the acts of the government,
the dignity of individual positions still existed wherever power
had not yet found it necessary to crush it.
{22}
Beside the forms of servility, we meet with forms, and sometimes
even with manifestations of independence. The grand seigneur,
though submissive and adoring as a courtier, could nevertheless
proudly remember on certain occasions that he was a gentleman.
Corneille the citizen could find no terms sufficiently humble to
express his gratitude to, and dependence upon, Cardinal
Richelieu; but Corneille the poet disdained the authority which
assumed to prescribe rules for the guidance of his genius, and
defended, against the literary pretensions of an absolute
minister, those "secret means of pleasing which he might have
found in his art." In fine, men of vigorous mind evaded in a
thousand ways the yoke of a still incomplete or inexperienced
despotism; and the imagination soared freely in every direction
within the range of its flight.
In England, during the reign of Elizabeth, the supreme power,
though far more irregular and less skillfully organised than it
was in France under Louis XIV., had to treat with much more
deeply-rooted principles of liberty. It would be a mistake to
measure the despotism of Elizabeth by the speeches of her
flatterers, or even by the acts of her government. In her still
young and inexperienced court, the language of adulation far
exceeded the servility of the adulator; and in the country, in
which ancient institutions had by no means perished, the
government was far from exercising universal sway. In the
counties and chief towns, an independent administration
maintained habits and instincts of liberty. The queen imposed
silence upon the Commons when they pressed her to appoint a
successor, or to grant some article of religious liberty. But the
Commons had met, and spoken; and the queen, notwithstanding the
haughtiness of her refusal, took great care to give no cause for
complaints that might have increased the authority of their
words.
{23}
Despotism and liberty, thus avoiding a meeting instead of seeking
a battle, manifested themselves without feeling any hatred for
each other, with that simplicity of action which prevents those
collisions and banishes those bitter feelings which are
occasioned on both sides by continual resistance. A Puritan had
had his right hand cut off as a punishment for having written a
tract against the proposed marriage of Elizabeth to the Duke of
Anjou; and immediately after the sentence had been executed, he
waved his hat with his left hand, and shouted, "God save the
Queen!" When loyalty is thus deeply rooted in the heart of a man
exposed to such sufferings for the cause of liberty, liberty in
general must necessarily think that it has no great reason for
complaint.
This period, then, was deficient in none of the advantages which
it was capable of desiring. There was nothing to prevent the
minds of the people from indulging freely in all the intoxication
natural to thought when it has reached the age of development--an
age of follies and miracles, when the imagination revels in its
most puerile as well as in its noblest manifestations.
Extravagantly luxurious festivities, splendor of dress, addiction
to gallantry, ardent conformity to fashion, and sacrifices to
favor, employed the wealth and leisure of the courtiers of
Elizabeth. More enthusiastic temperaments went to distant lands
in search of adventures, which, in addition to the hope of
fortune, offered them the livelier pleasure of perilous
encounters. Sir Francis Drake sailed forth as a corsair, and
volunteers thronged on board his ship; Sir Walter Raleigh
announced a distant expedition, and scions of noble houses sold
their goods to join his crew.
{24}
Spontaneous ventures and patriotic enterprises followed each
other in almost daily succession; and, far from becoming
exhausted by this continual movement, the minds of men received
from it fresh vigor and impulse. Thought claimed its share in the
supply of pleasures, and became, at the same time, the sustenance
of the most serious passions. While the crowd hurried on all
sides into the numerous theatres which had been erected, the
Puritan, in his solitary meditations, burned with indignation
against these pomps of Belial, and this sacrilegious employment
of man, the image of God upon earth. Poetic ardor and religious
asperity, literary quarrels and theological controversies, taste
for festivities and fanaticism for austerities, philosophy and
criticism, sermons, pamphlets, and epigrams, appeared
simultaneously, and jostled each other in admired confusion. Amid
this natural and fantastic conflict of opposite elements, the
power of opinion, the feeling and habit of liberty, were silently
in process of formation: two forces, brilliant at their first
appearance and imposing in their progress, the first-fruits of
which belong to any skillful government that is able to use them,
but the maturity of which is terrible to any imprudent government
that may attempt to reduce them to servitude. The impulse which
has constituted the glory of a reign, may speedily become the
fever which will precipitate a people into revolution. In the
days of Elizabeth, the movement of the public mind summoned
England only to festivities; and dramatic poetry sprang into full
being under the master-hand of Shakspeare.
{25}
Who would not delight to go to the fountain-head of the first
inspirations of an original genius; to penetrate into the secret
of the causes which guided his nascent powers; to follow him step
by step in his progress; and, in a word, to behold the whole
inner life of a man who, after having in his own country opened
to dramatic poetry the road which she has never since quitted,
still reigns pre-eminent, and with almost undivided sway?
Unfortunately, Shakspeare is one of these superior men whose life
was but little noticed by his contemporaries, and it has
therefore remained obscure to succeeding generations. A few civil
registers in which traces of the existence of his family have
been preserved, a few traditions connected with his name in the
district in which he was born, and the splendid productions of
his own genius, are the only means which we possess of supplying
the deficiencies of his personal history.
The family of Shakspeare resided at Stratford-upon-Avon, in the
county of Warwick. His father, John Shakspeare, derived the
greater part of his income, as it would appear, from his business
as a wool-stapler. It is probable, however, that he connected
with this several other branches of trade; for in some anecdotes
collected at Stratford--fifty years, it is true, after
Shakspeare's death--Aubrey [Footnote 3] represents him to have
been the son of a butcher.
[Footnote 3: A writer who lived about fifty years after
Shakspeare, and who made a collection of anecdotes and
traditions regarding the time in which he flourished.]
At such a distance of time, recollections handed down through two
or three generations might have become somewhat confused in the
memory of Shakspeare's fellow-townsmen; but professions were not
then so distinct or so numerous as they have become in our times,
and nothing could have been less strange, at this period, and
especially in a small town, than the union of the various trades
connected with the sale of cattle.
{26}
However this may be, Shakspeare's family belonged to that
_bourgeoisie_ which early acquired so much importance in
England. His great-great-grandfather had received from Henry
VII., "for his valiant and faithful services," a grant of land in
Warwickshire. His father filled the office of high bailiff of
Stratford in the year 1569; but, ten years afterward, it would
seem that he experienced a reverse of fortune, for in 1579 we
find, from the registers of Stratford, that two aldermen, of whom
John Shakspeare was one, were exempted from paying a small tax
paid by their colleagues. In 1586 he was removed from his office
of alderman, the duties of which he had for some time ceased to
perform. Other causes besides his poverty may have led to his
removal. It has been said that Shakspeare was a Catholic; and it
appears at least to be certain that such was the faith of his
father. In the year 1770, a bricklayer, while mending the roof of
the house in which Shakspeare was born, found, between the
rafters and the tiling, a manuscript, which had doubtless been
hidden there in a time of persecution, and which contained a
profession of the Catholic faith in fourteen articles, all of
which began with the words: "I, John Shakspeare." The
ever-increasing power of the doctrines of the Reformation had,
perhaps, rendered the duties of an alderman more difficult of
performance to a Catholic, who, as he advanced in age, may also
have become more scrupulous in the observance of the rules of his
faith.
William Shakspeare was born on the 23d of April, 1564. He was the
third or fourth of the nine, ten, or perhaps eleven children who
constituted the family of John. William, there is reason to
believe, was the first son, the eldest of his father's hopes.
Prosperity and respectability undoubtedly belonged, at this
period, to his family, as its head became chief magistrate of his
native town five years afterward.
{27}
We may therefore admit that Shakspeare's education, in his
earlier years, was in conformity with the circumstances of his
father; and when a change in his fortunes, from whatever cause it
may have arisen, occasioned an interruption of his studies, he
had probably acquired those first elements of a liberal education
which are quite sufficient to free the mind of a superior man
from the awkwardness of ignorance, and to put him in possession
of those forms which he will need for the suitable expression of
his thoughts. This is more than enough to explain how it was that
Shakspeare was deficient in those acquirements which constitute a
good education, although he possessed the elegance which is its
usual accompaniment.
Shakspeare was scarcely fifteen years old when he was taken from
school to assist his impoverished father in his business. It was
then that, according to Aubrey, William exercised the sanguinary
functions of a butcher's assistant. This supposition is
considered revolting by commentators on the poet at the present
day; but a circumstance related by Aubrey does not permit us to
doubt its correctness, and at the same time reveals to us that
his young imagination was already incapable of subjecting itself
to so vile an employment without connecting therewith some
ennobling idea or sentiment. "When he killed a calf," said the
people of the neighborhood to Aubrey, "he would do it in a high
style, and make a speech." Who can not catch a glimpse, in this
story, of the tragic poet inspired by the sight of death, even in
an animal, and striving to render it imposing or pathetic? Who
can not picture to himself the scholar of thirteen or fourteen
years of age, with his head full of his first literary
attainments, and his mind impressed, perhaps, by some theatrical
performance, elevating, in poetic transport, the animal about to
fall beneath his ax to the dignity of a victim, or perhaps even
to that of a tyrant?
{28}
In the year 1576, the brilliant Leicester celebrated the visit of
Queen Elizabeth to Kenilworth by festivities, whose extraordinary
magnificence is attested by all the chronicles of the time.
Shakspeare was then twelve years old, and Kenilworth is only a
few miles from Stratford. It is difficult to doubt that the
family of the young poet participated, with all the population of
the surrounding country, in the pleasure and admiration excited
by these pompous spectacles. What an impulse would the
imagination of Shakspeare not fail to receive! Nevertheless, the
early years of the poet have transmitted to us, as the only sign
of those singularities which may announce the presence of genius,
the anecdote which I have just related; and the information which
we possess regarding the amusements of his youth gives no hint
whatever of the tastes and pleasures of a literary life.
We live in times of civilization, and progress, when every thing
has its place and rule, and when the destiny of every individual
is determined by circumstances more or less imperious, but which
manifest themselves at an early period. A poet begins by being a
poet; he who is to become one knows it almost from infancy;
poetry has been familiar to his earliest contemplation; it may
have been his first taste, his first passion when the movement of
the passions awakened in his heart. The young man has expressed
in verse that which he does not yet feel; and when feeling truly
arises within him, his first thought will be to express it in
verse. Poetry has become the object of his existence--an object
as important as any other--a career in which he may obtain
fortune as well as glory, and which may afford an opening to the
serious ideas of his future life, as well as to the capricious
sallies of his youth.
{29}
In so advanced a state of society, a man can not be long
ignorant, or spend much time in search of his own powers; an easy
way presents itself to the view of that youthful ardor which
would probably wander far astray before finding the direction
best suited to it; those forces and passions from which talent
will issue soon learn the secret of their destiny; and, summed up
in speeches, images, and harmonious cadences, the illusions of
desire, the chimeras of hope, and sometimes even the bitterness
of disappointment, are exhaled without difficulty in the
precocious essays of the young man.
In times when life is difficult and manners coarse, this is
rarely the case in regard to the poet, who is formed by nature
alone. Nothing reveals him so speedily to himself; he must have
felt much before he can think he has any thing to portray; his
first powers will be spent in action--in such irregular action as
may be provoked by the impatience of his desires--in violent
action, if any obstacle intervene between himself and the success
with which his fiery imagination has promised to crown him. In
vain has fate bestowed on him the noblest gifts; he can employ
them only upon the single object with which he is acquainted.
Heaven only knows what triumphs he will achieve by his eloquence,
in what projects and for what advantages he will display the
riches of his inventive faculty, among what equals his talents
will raise him to the first rank, and of what society the
vivacity of his mind will render him the amusement and the idol!
Alas for this melancholy subjection of man to the external world!
Gifted with useless power if his horizon be less extensive than
his capacity of vision, he sees only that which lies around him;
and Heaven, which has bestowed treasures upon him with such
lavish munificence, has done nothing for him if it does not place
him in circumstances which may reveal them to his gaze.
{30}
This revelation commonly arises from misfortune; when the world
fails the superior man, he falls back upon himself, and becomes
aware of his own resources; when necessity presses him, he
collects his powers; and it is frequently through having lost the
faculty of groveling upon earth that genius and virtue rise in
triumph to the skies.
Neither the occupations in which Shakspeare seemed destined to
spend his life, nor the amusements and companions of his leisure
hours, afforded him any materials adapted to affect and absorb
that imagination, the power of which had begun to agitate his
being. Rushing into all the excitements which he met on his way,
because nothing could satisfy him, the youth of the poet gave
admission to pleasure, under whatever form it presented itself. A
tradition of the banks of the Avon, which is in strict accordance
with probability, gives us reason to suppose that he had only a
choice of the most vulgar diversions. The anecdote is still
related, it is said, by the men of Stratford and of Bidford, a
neighboring village, renowned in past ages for the excellence of
its beer, and also, it is added, for the unquenchable thirst of
its inhabitants.
The population of the neighborhood of Bidford was divided into
two classes, known by the names of _Topers_ and
_Sippers_. These fraternities were in the habit of
challenging to drinking-bouts all those who, in the surrounding
country, took credit to themselves for any merit of this kind.
The youth of Stratford, when challenged in its turn, valiantly
accepted the defiance; and Shakspeare, who, we are assured, was
no less a connoisseur in beer than Falstaff in Canary sack,
formed a part of the joyous band, from which, doubtless, he
rarely separated.
{31}
But their strength was not equal to their courage. On arriving at
the place of meeting, the champions of Stratford found out that
the Topers had set out for a neighboring fair. The Sippers, who,
to all appearance, were less formidable opponents, remained
alone, and proposed to try the fortune of war. The offer was
accepted; but in a short time the Stratford party were thoroughly
knocked up, and reduced to the sad necessity of employing their
little remaining reason in using their legs as they best might to
effect a retreat. The operation was difficult, and soon became
impossible. They had hardly gone a mile, when their strength
failed, and the whole party bivouacked for the night under a
crab-tree, which, travelers tell us, is still standing on the
road from Stratford to Bidford, and is known by the name of
Shakspeare's Tree. On the following morning, his comrades,
refreshed and invigorated by rest and sleep, endeavored to induce
him to return with them to avenge the affront they had received
on the previous evening; but Shakspeare refused to go back, and,
looking round on the villages which were to be seen from the
point on which he stood, exclaimed, "No, I have had enough
drinking with
'Piping Pebworth, dancing Marston,
Haunted Hillborough, hungry Grafton,
Dudging [Footnote 4] Exhall, Papist Wicksford,
Beggarly Broom, and drunken Bidford.'" [Footnote 5]
[Footnote 4: Sulky, stubborn, in dudgeon.]
[Footnote 5: Several of these villages still retain the
reputation ascribed to them by Shakspeare in this quatrain.]
{32}
This conclusion of the adventure gives rise to the presumption
that debauchery had less share than gayety in these excursions of
Shakspeare's youth, and that verse, if not poetry, was already
the natural language in which he gave expression to his feelings.
Tradition has handed down to us some other impromptus of the same
kind, but they are connected with anecdotes of less significance.
All that we know, however, combines to portray to us his merry
and quick imagination disporting itself with complacency amid the
uncouth objects of his amusements; and we behold the future
friend of Lord Southampton charming the rustic inhabitants of the
banks of the Avon with that graceful animation, that joyous
serenity of temper, and that benevolent openness of character
which every where found or made for itself pleasures and friends.